The Way of Idiocy, Part 1
by kalinda001
Summary: A fun one for me. My take on Blake, and remember how much I detest him, from his early days as an 'engineer'


"Who the hell hired this moron?" asked Senior engineer Strachan, shaking his head, dumbfounded at the circuit diagram on his screen. He combed his fingers through his thin patch of greying hair; which was growing greyer by the minute.

"Who?" Journeyman Engineer Marks replied from somewhere under the next workbench. A freckled-faced young man stood up, grasping a spanner in his hand triumphantly. "Found you. I knew you had to be somewhere."

"Roj. That kid they sent over from the Federation Engineering Academy."

"Oh, the who thinks he's god's gift to engineering?"

Strachan snorted. "God's gift to idiocy is more like it. Whoever put it into this kid's head that he would make a good engineer should be shot."

"He has spirit."

"Yeah, and that, plus my left shoe _might_ make him a good janitor. I mean, dammit…" He jabbed at the mess on the screen. "How many times have I told him that the laws of physics are _not_ open to interpretation? Not for someone of his limited knowledge and understanding."

Strachan's lips curled in a snarl and he pounded the table, knocking over a stack of neatly stacked data chips. "Engineers are supposed to be meticulous! I don't think the kid knows the meaning of the word. He blunders in without doing his homework and nearly got his teammate killed on the Dyson-Bridge project. What a disaster! If Blake's parents weren't so high up in the Agricultural Ministry, he would have been fired."

Marks rubbed the bridge of his nose with the edge of the spanner. "I'm glad he's not on my team. He sounds like a fulltime project."

"More like a fulltime pain in my ass. I feel like a baby sitter."

"Why don't you fail him on his next quarterly review?"

Strachan restacked the chips. "Oh, believe me, I tried. He should have been flunked _before_ he got this far but he accused his last mentor of bias against him _and_ improper sexual advances."

"But wasn't his mentor Cheevers? Isn't he… straight?"

Strachan snorted in derision. "The stupid kid couldn't even get that right. But his parents are…"

"…high up. I get it."

"And the kid's paranoid. Thinks everyone is out to make him look stupid. He can't accept that he is. Thinks everything's a conspiracy. He even had the audacity of demanding fair treatment even though he scored less than 50 on his last performance report. Said it was the tyranny of an unfair evaluation system, biased against the honest man."

Mark's forehead wrinkled. "What?"

"Did I mention he's insane? He was screaming in the manager's office, threatening to have him investigated by some citizen advocacy bureau, until Fife gave him another chance. And now, _I'm_ stuck with him." The stack of chips was perfect, the edges aligned without deviation. Strachan glared at it and deliberately knocked it over.

"How did you get that lucky?" Marks asked, obviously trying to lighten his mood.

"Somebody must hate me."

Marks rubbed his nose with the spanner again. "I heard you were being moved over to the Aquatar project?"

"You want to come along?" grinned Strachan. At least one thing was going well.

"I was hoping you would ask."

"Good, you can help keep an eye on Blake."

"Oh, no," Marks groaned, "you're not serious? I'd rather blow my brains out now. He's going to ruin everything. He always does."

The senior engineer paused, a brief smile thinning his lips, his eyes sharp as a blade. "I told him I'm giving him a promotion."

"Are _you_ insane?"

"To sanitation engineer."

Marks sputtered in laughter. "He's going to take out the garbage?"

"I _said_ he might make a good janitor. Let's see if he lives up to his potential."

"You're cruel."

"It's what he deserves for setting me back three years for promotion because of his Ty-Seeley stunt. He lied to me about going into the Phase Reduction chamber. Even when I told him not to increase the pluron flow because it was too dangerous. He never listens to anyone, he claimed it would speed up the reaction and that if it worked, he would be justified in his actions. Accused me of being too cautious. Damned arrogant, short-sighted idiot. Speed is not the only consideration. Made me look like a fool when Acker lost both his hands because there was a power surge and the chamber rods blew up. Poor Acker. I hear they do good work with bionic implants these days."

"Poor you."

Strachan sighed wearily and leaned back, deflating like a lifeless balloon. "So how about it?"

"I don't want to lose any vital organs."

"Unless it's Blake's head," snarled Strachan.

"Then that's definitely not a vital organ," grinned Marks.

They both laughed.

"All right." Nodded Marks. "I'll help out. It'll take two of us to prevent Blake from destroying the Aquatar project."

"That might not be enough."

"I hear they're bringing in a whiz kid from the Advanced SciTech Academy?"

Strachan rubbed his hands together. He couldn't believe the difference between the two young men. One was a genius at getting things done, the other…was a genius at not getting things done. "A brilliant young man. Kerr Avon. He's already making a name for himself in the computronics field. They say he's the next Ensor."

"Then I definitely want to meet him."

"He's going to run the computer sims on the Aquatar transformation matrix."

"They say he can solve anything. That's a tall order."

"They need someone of his calibre on the teleport project. They've been working on it for years and haven't got anywhere."

"Hopefully we can. The Federation Administration has a lot invested in this project and they don't like failure."

They exchanged worried glances.


End file.
